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DREAMS 


DREAMS 


BY 


HENRI   BERGSON 


TRANSLATED,   WITH  AN  INTRODUCTION,   BY 

EDWIN  E.   SLOSSON 


NEW  YORK 

B.   W.   HUEBSCH 

1914 


Copyright.  1913.  by  THE  INDEPENDENT 


Copyright.  1914.  by  B.  W.  HUEBSCH 


Printed  in  U.  S.  A. 


INTRODUCTION 

BEFORE  the  dawn  of  history  mankind 
was  engaged  in  the  study  of  dreaming. 
The  wise  man  among  the  ancients  was 
preeminently  the  interpreter  of  dreams.  The 
ability  to  interpret  successfully  or  plausibly  was 
the  quickest  road  to  royal  favor,  as  Joseph  and 
Daniel  found  it  to  be;  failure  to  give  satisfac- 
tion in  this  respect  led  to  banishment  from  court 
or  death.  When  a  scholar  laboriously  translates 
a  cuneiform  tablet  dug  up  from  a  Babylonian 
mound  where  it  has  lain  buried  for  five  thou- 
sand years  or  more,  the  chances  are  that  it  will 
turn  out  either  an  astrological  treatise  or  a 
dream  book.  If  the  former,  we  look  upon  it 
with  with  some  indulgence;  if  the  latter  with 
pure  contempt.  For  we  know  that  the  study  of 
the  stars,  though  undertaken  for  selfish  reasons 
and  pursued  in  the  spirit  of  charlatanry,  led  at 
length  to  physical  science,  while  the  study  of 
dreams  has  proved  as  unprofitable  as  the  dream^ 
ing  of  them.  Out  of  astrolo^  grew  astronomy. 
Out  of  onciromancy  has  grown — nothing. 

5  ~ ^ 


6  INTRODUCTION 

That  at  least  was  substantially  true  up  to 
the  beginning  of  the  present  century.  Dream 
books  in  all  languages  continued  to  sell  in  cheap 
editions  and  the  interpreters  of  dreams  made  a 
decent  or,  at  any  rate,  a  comfortable  living  out 
of  the  poorer  classes.  But  the  psychologist 
rarely  paid  attention  to  dreams  except  inci- 
dentally in  his  study  of  imagery,  association  and 
the  speed  of  thought.  But  now  a  change  has 
come  over  the  spirit  of  the  times.  The  subject 
of  the  significance  of  dreams,  so  long  ignored, 
has  suddenly  become  a  matter  of  energetic  study 
and  of  fiery  controversy  the  world  over. 

The  cause  of  this  revival  of  interest  is  the 
new  point  of  view  brought  forward  by  Professor 
Bergson  in  the  paper  which  is  here  made  acces- 
sible to  the  English-reading  public.  <^This  is  the 
idea  that  we  can  explore  the  unconscious  sub- 
stratum of  our  mentality,  the  storehouse  of  our 
memories,  by  means  of  dreams,  for  these  mem- 
ories are  by  no  means  inert,  but  have,  as  it  were, 
a  life  and  purpose  of  their  own,  and  strive  to 
rise  into  consciousness  whenever  they  get  a 
chance,  even  into  the  semi-consciousness  of  a 
dream.  To  use  Professor  Bergson's  striking 
metaphor,  our  memories  are  packed  away  under 
pressure  like  steam  in  a  boiler  and  the  dream 
is  their  escape  valve. "^ 


INTRODUCTION  7 

That  this  is  more  than  a  mere  metaphor  has 
been  proved  by  Professor  Freud  and  others  of 
the  Vienna  school,  who  cure  cases  of  hysteria  by 
inducing  the  patient  to  give  expression  to  the 
secret  anxieties  and  emotions  which,  unknown 
to  him,  have  been  preying  upon  his  mind.  The 
clue  to  these  disturbing  thoughts  is  generally  ob- 
tained in  dreams  or  similar  states  of  relaxed 
consciousness.  According  to  the  Freudians _jaL 
dream  always  means  sQn^c;thi"g,  ^\}t  1^^.^^ ;^l2gj' 
it  appears  to  mean.  It  is  symbolic  and  ex- 
presses desires  or  fears  which  we  refuse  ordi- 
narily to  admit  to  consciousness,  either  because 
they  are  painful  or  because  they  are  repugnant 
to  our  moral  nature.  A  watchman  is  stationed  at 
the  gate  of  consciousness  to  keep  them  back,  but 
sometimes  these  unwelcome  intruders  slip  past 
him  in  disguise.  In  the  hands  of  fanatical 
Freudians  this  theory  has  developed  the  wildest 
extravagancies,  and  the  voluminous  literature  of 
psycho-analysis  contains  much  that  seems  to  the 
layman  quite  as  absurd  as  the  stuff  which  fills 
the  twenty-five  cent  dream  book. 

It  is  impossible  to  believe  that  the  subcon- 
sciousness of  every  one  of  us  contains  nothing 
but  the  foul  and  monstrous  specimens  which  they 
dredge  up  from  the  mental  depths  of  their 
neuropathic  patients  and  exhibit  with  such  pride. 


«  INTRODUCTION 

Bergson's  view  seems  to  me  truer  as  it  is  cer- 
tainly more  agreeable,  that  we  keep  stored  away 
somewhere  all  our  memories,  the  good  as  well 
as  the  evil,  the  pleasant  together  with  the  un- 
pleasant. There  may  be  nightmares  down  cel- 
lar, as  we  thought  as  a  child,  but  even  in  those 
days  we  knew  how  to  dodge  them  when  we  went 
after  apples;  that  is,  take  down  a  light  and  slam 
the  door  quickly  on  coming  up. 

Maeterlinck,  too,  knew  this  trick  of  our 
childhood.  When  in  the  Palace  of  Night,  scene 
of  his  fairy  play,  the  redoubtable  Tyltyl  unlocks 
the  cage  where  are  confined  the  nightmares  and 
all  other  evil  imaginings;  he  shuts  the  door  in 
time  to  keep  them  in  and  then  opens  another 
revealing  a  lovely  garden  full  of  blue  birds, 
which,  though  they  fade  and  die  when  brought 
into  the  light  of  common  day,  yet  encour- 
age him  to  continue  his  search  for  the  Blue 
Bird  that  never  fades,  but  lives  everlastingly. 
The  new  science  of  dreams  is  giving  a  deeper  sig- 
nificance to  the  trite  wish  of  "Good  night  and 
pleasant  dreams  1"  It  means  sweet  sanity  and 
mental  health,  pure  thoughts  and  good  will  to  all 
men. 

Professor  Bergson's  theory  of  dreaming  here 
set  forth  in  untechnical  language,  fits  into 
a  particular  niche  in  his  general  system  of  philos- 


INTRODUCTION  9 

ophy  as  well  as  does  his  little  book  on  Laughter, 
With  the  main  features  of  his  philosophy  the 
English-reading  public  is  better  acquainted  than 
with  any  other  contemporary  system,  for  his 
books  have  sold  even  more  rapidly  here  than  in 
France.  When  Professor  Bergson  visited  the 
United  States  two  years  ago  the  lecture-rooms 
of  Columbia  University,  like  those  of  the  Col- 
lege de  France,  were  packed  to  the  doors  and 
the  effect  of  his  message  was  enhanced  by  his 
eloquence  of  delivery  and  charm  of  personality. 
The  pragmatic  character  of  his  philosophy  ap- 
peals to  the  genius  of  the  American  people  as 
is  shown  by  the  influence  of  the  teaching  of 
William  James  and  John  Dewey,  whose  point 
of  view  in  this  respect  resembles  Bergson's. 

During  the  present  generation  chemistry  and 
biology  have  passed  from  the  descriptive  to  the 
creative  stage.  Man  is  becoming  the  over- 
lord of  the  mineral,  vegetable  and  animal  king- 
doms. He  is  learning  to  make  gems  and  per- 
furqes,  drugs  and  foods,  to  suit  his  tastes,  in- 
stead of  depending  upon  the  chance  bounty  of 
nature.  He  is  beginning  consciously  to  adapt 
means  to  ends  and  to  plan  for  the  future  even  in 
the  field  of  politics.  He  has  opened  up  the 
atom  and  finds  in  it  a  microcosm  more  complex 
than  the  solar  system.    He  beholds  the  elements 


+ 


lo  INTRODUCTION 

melting  with  fervent  heat  and  he  turns  their 
rays  to  the  healing  of  his  sores.  He  drives  the 
lightning  through  the  air  and  with  the  product 
feeds  his  crops.  He  makes  the  desert  to  blos- 
som as  the  rose  and  out  of  the  sea  he  draws 
forth  dry  land.  He  treats  the  earth  as  his 
habitation,  remodeling  it  in  accordance  with  his 
ever-varying  needs  and  increasing  ambitions. 

This  modem  man,  planning,  contriving  and 
making,  finds  Paley's  watch  as  little  to  his  mind 
as  Lucretius's  blind  flow  of  atoms.  A  universe 
wound  up  once  for  all  and  doing  nothing  there- 
after but  mark  time  is  as  incomprehensible  to 
him  as  a  universe  that  never  had  a  mind  of  its 
own  and  knows  no  difference  between  past  and 
future.  The  idea  of  eternal  recurrence  does  not 
frighten  him  as  it  did  Nietzsche,  for  he  feels  it 
to  be  impossible.  The  mechanistic  interpreta- 
tion of  natural  phenomena  developed  during  the 
last  century  he  accepts  at  its  full  value,  and 
would  extend  experimentally  as  far  as  it  will 
go,  for  he  finds  it  not  invalid  but  inadequate. 

To  minds  of  this  temperament  it  is  no  won- 
der that  Bergson's  Creative  Evolution  came  with 
the  force  of  an  inspiration.  Men  felt  themselves 
akin  to  this  upward  impulse,  this  elan  vital, 
which,  struggling  throughout  the  ages  with  the 
intractableness  of  inert  matter,   yet  finally  in 


INTRODUCTION  ii 

some  way  or  other  forces  it  to  its  will,  and  ever 
strives  toward  the  increase  of  vitality,  mentality, 
personality. 

Bergson  has  been  reluctant  to  commit  him- 
self on  the  question  of  immortality,  but  he  of 
late  has  become  quite  convinced  of  it.  He  even 
goes  so  far  as  to  think  it  possible  that  we  may 
find  experimental  evidence  of  personal  persist- 
ence after  death.  This  at  least  we  might  infer 
from  his  recent  acceptance  of  the  presidency  of 
the  British  Society  for  Psychical  Research.  In 
his  opening  address  before  the  Society,  May  28, 
19 13,  he  discussed  the  question  of  telepathy  and 
in  that  connection  he  explained  his  theory  of  the 
relation  of  mind  and  brain  in  the  following 
language,  I  quote  from  the  report  in  the  Lon- 
don Times: 

The  ro/e  of  the  brain  is  to  bring  back  the  remembrance  of  an 
action,  to  prolong  the  remembrance  in  movements.  If  one  could 
see  all  that  takes  place  in  the  interior  of  the  brain,  one  would 
find  that  that  which  takes  place  there  corresponds  to  a  small  part 
only  of  the  life  of  the  mind.  The  brain  simply  extracts  from  the 
life  of  the  mind  that  which  is  capable  of  representation  in  move- 
ment. The  cerebral  life  is  to  the  mental  life  what  the  move- 
ments of  the  baton  of  a  conductor  are  to  the  Symphony. 

The  brain,  then,  is  that  which  allows  the  mind  to  adjust  itself 
exactly  to  circumstances.  It  is  the  organ  of  attention  to  life. 
Should  it  become  deranged,  however  slightly,  the  mind  is  no 
longer  fitted  to  the  circumstances;  it  wanders,  dreams.  Many 
forms  of  mental  alienation  are  nothing  else.  But  from  this  it  re- 
sults that  one  of  the  rv/es  of  the  brain  is  to  limit  the  vision  of  the 


12  INTRODUCTION 

mind,  to  render  its  action  more  efficacious.  This  is  what  we  ob- 
serve in  regard  to  the  memory,  where  the  role  of  the  brain  is  to 
mask  the  useless  part  of  our  past  in  order  to  allow  only  the  use- 
ful remembrances  to  appear.  Certain  useless  recollections,  or 
dream  remembrances,  manage  nevertheless  to  appear  also,  and  to 
form  a  vague  fringe  around  the  distinct  recollections.  It  would 
not  be  at  all  surprising  if  perceptions  of  the  organs  of  our  senses, 
useful  perceptions,  were  the  result  of  a  selection  or  of  a  canaliza- 
tion worked  by  the  organs  of  our  senses  in  the  interest  of  our 
action,  but  that  there  should  yet  be  around  those  perceptions  a 
fringe  of  vague  perceptions,  capable  of  becoming  more  distinct 
in  extraordinary,  abnormal  cases.  Those  would  be  precisely  the 
cases  with  which  psychical  research  would  deal. 

This  conception  of  mental  action  forms,  as 
will  be  seen,  the  foundation  of  the  theory  of 
dreams  which  Professor  Bergson  first  presented 
in  a  lecture  before  the  Institut  psychologique, 
March  26,  1901.  It  was  published  in  the  Revue 
scientifique  of  June  8,  1901.  An  English  trans- 
lation, revised  by  the  author  and  printed  in  The 
Independent  of  October  23  and  30,  19 13,  here 
appears  for  the  first  time  in  book  form. 

In  this  essay  Professor  Bergson  made  sev- 
eral contributions  to  our  knowledge  of  dreams. 
He  showed,  in  the  first  place,  that  dreaming  is 
not  so  unlike  the  ordinary  process  of  perception 
as  had  been  hitherto  supposed.  Both  use  sense 
impressions  as  crude  material  to  be  molded  and 
defined  by  the  aid  of  memory  images.  Here, 
too,  he  set  forth  the  idea,  which  he,  so  far  as 


INTRODUCTION  13 

I  know,  was  the  first  to  formulate,  that  g|e^p  is 
a  state  of  disinterestedness,  a  theory  which  has 
since  been  adopted  by  several  psychologists.  In 
this  address,  also,  was  brought  into  consideration 
for  the  first  time  the  idea  that  the  self  may  go 
through  different  degrees  of  tension — a  theory 
referred  to  in  his  Matter  and  Memory. 

Its  chief  interest  for  the  general  reader  will, 
however,  lie  in  the  explanation  it  gives  him  of 
the  cause  of  some  of  his  familiar  dreams.  He 
may  by  practice  become  the  interpreter  of  his 
own  visions  and  so  come  to  an  understanding  of 
the  vagaries  of  that  mysterious  and  inseparable 
companion,  his  dream-self. 

Edwin  E.  Slosson. 

New  York  Cmr, 
February   io,  1914. 


DREAMS 

THE  subject  which  I  have  to  discuss 
here  is  so  complex,  it  raises  so  many 
questions  of  all  kinds,  difficult,  ob- 
scure, some  psychological,  others  physi- 
ological and  metaphysical;  in  order  to  be 
treated  in  a  complete  manner  it  requires 
such  a  long  development — and  we  have  so 
little  space,  that  I  shall  ask  your  permission 
to  dispense  with  all  preamble,  to  set  aside 
unessentials,  and  to  go  at  once  to  the  heart 
of  the  question. 

A  dream  is  this.  I  perceive  objects  and 
there  is  nothing  there.  I  see  men;  I  seem 
to  speak  to  them  and  I  hear  what  they  an- 
swer; there  is  no  one  there  and  I  have  not 
spoken.  It  is  all  as  if  real  things  and  real 
persons  were  there,  then  on  waking  all  has 
disappeared,  both  persons  and  things.  How 
does  this  happen? 

But,  first,  is  it  true  that  there  is  nothing 
there?     I  mean,  is  there  not  presented  a 

15 


i6  DREAMS 

certain  sense  material  to  our  eyes,  to  our 
ears,  to  our  touch,  etc.,  during  sleep  as  well 
as  during  waking? 

Close  the  eyes  and  look  attentively  at 
what  goes  on  in  the  field  of  our  vision- 
Many  persons  questioned  on  this  point 
would  say  that  nothing  goes  on,  that  they 
see  nothing.  No  wonder  at  this,  for  a  cer- 
tain amount  of  practise  is  necessary  to  be 
able  to  observe  oneself  satisfactorily.  But 
just  give  the  requisite  effort  of  attention, 
and  you  will  distinguish,  little  by  little, 
many  things.  First,  in  general,  a  black 
background.  Upon  this  black  background 
occasionally  brilliant  points  which  come 
and  go,  rising  and  descending,  slowly  and 
sedately.  More  often,  spots  of  many  colors, 
sometimes  very  dull,  sometimes,  on  the  con- 
trary, with  certain  people,  so  brilliant  that 
reality  cannot  compare  with  it.  These 
spots  spread  and  shrink,  changing  form  and 
color,  constantly  displacing  one  another. 
Sometimes  the  change  is  slow  and  gradual, 
sometimes  again  it  is  a  whirlwind  of  ver- 
tiginous rapidity.  Whence  comes  all  this 
phantasmagoria?     The   physiologists    and 


DREAMS  17 

the  psychologists  have  studied  this  play  of 
colors.  "Ocular  spectra,"  "colored  spots," 
"phosphenes,"  such  are  the  names  that  they 
have  given  to  the  phenomenon.  They  ex- 
plain it  either  by  the  slight  modifications 
which  occur  ceaselessly  in  the  retinal  cir- 
culation, or  by  the  pressure  that  the  closed 
lid  exerts  upon  the  eyeball,  causing  a  me- 
chanical excitation  of  the  optic  nerve.  But 
the  explanation  of  the  phenomenon  and 
the  name  that  is  given  to  it  matters  little. 
It  occurs  universally  and  it  constitutes — I 
may  say  at  once — the  principal  material  of_ 
which  we  shape  our  dreams,  "such  stuff  as 
dreams  are  made  on."       "" 

Thirty  or  forty  years  ago,  M.  Alfred 
Maury  and,  about  the  same  time,  M. 
d'Hervey,  of  St.  Denis,  had  observed  that 
at  the  moment  of  falling  asleep  these  col- 
ored spots  and  moving  forms  consolidate, 
fix  themselves,  take  on  definite  outlines, 
the  outlines  of  the  objects  and  of  the  per- 
sons which  people  our  dreams.  But  this 
is  an  observation  to  be  accepted  with  cau- 
tion, since  it  emanates  from  psychologists 
already   half   asleep.      More    recently   an 


i8  DREAMS 

American  psychologist,  Professor  Ladd,  of 
Yale,  has  devised  a  more  rigorous  method, 
but  of  difficult  application,  because  it  re- 
quires a  sort  of  training.  It  consists  in 
acquiring  the  habit  on  awakening  in  the 
morning  of  keeping  the  eyes  closed  and  re- 
taining for  some  minutes  the  dream  that 
is  fading  from  the  field  of  vision  and  soon 
would  doubtless  have  faded  from  that  of 
memory.  Then  one  sees  the  figures  and 
objects  of  the  dream  melt  away  little  by 
little  into  phosphenes,  identifying  them- 
selves with  the  colored  spots  that  the  eye 
really  perceives  when  the  lids  are  closed. 
One  reads,  for  example,  a  newspaper; 
that  is  the  dream.  One  awakens  and  there 
remains  of  the  newspaper,  whose  definite 
outlines  are  erased,  only  a  white  spot 
with  black  marks  here  and  there;  that  is 
the  reality.  Or  our  dream  takes  us  upon 
the  open  sea — round  about  us  the  ocean 
spreads  its  waves  of  yellowish  gray  with 
here  and  there  a  crown  of  white  foam. 
On  awakening,  it  is  all  lost  in  a  great  spot, 
half  yellow  and  half  gray,  sown  with  brill- 
iant points.    The  spot  was  there,  the  brill- 


DREAMS  19 

iant  points  were  there.  There  was  really 
presented  to  our  perceptions,  in  sleep,  a 
visual  dust,  and  it  was  this  dust  which 
served  for  the  fabrication  of  our  dreams. 

Will  this  alone  suffice?  Still  consider- 
ing the  sensation  of  sight,  we  ought  to  add 
to  these  visual  sensations  which  we  may 
call  internal  all  those  which  continue  to 
come  to  us  from  an  external  source.  The 
eyes,  when  closed,  still  distinguish  light 
from  shade,  and  even,  to  a  certain  extent, 
different  lights  from  one  another.  These 
sensations  of  light,  emanating  from  with- 
out, are  at  the  bottom  of  many  of  our 
dreams.  A  candle  abruptly  lighted  in  the 
room  will,  for  example,  suggest  to  the 
sleeper,  if  his  slumber  is  not  too  deep,  a 
dream  dominated  by  the  image  of  fire,  the 
idea  of  a  burning  building.  Permit  me  to 
cite  to  you  two  observations  of  M.  Tissie 
on  this  subject: 

"B Leon  dreams  that  the  theater 

of  Alexandria  is  on  fire;  the  flame  lights  up 
the  whole  place.  All  of  a  sudden  he  finds 
himself   transported   to   the  midst  of   the 


20  DREAMS 

fountain  in  the  public  square;  a  line  of 
fire  runs  along  the  chains  which  connect 
the  great  posts  placed  around  the  margin. 
Then  he  finds  himself  in  Paris  at  the  ex- 
position, which  is  on  fire.  He  takes  part 
in  terrible  scenes,  etc.  He  wakes  with  a 
start;  his  eyes  catch  the  rays  of  light  pro- 
jected by  the  dark  lantern  which  the  night 
nurse  flashes   toward  his  bed  in  passing. 

M Bertrand  dreams  that  he  is  in  the 

marine  infantry  where  he  formerly  served. 
He  goes  to  Fort-de-France,  to  Toulon,  to 
Loriet,  to  Crimea,  to  Constantinople.  He 
sees  lightning,  he  hears  thunder,  he  takes 
part  in  a  combat  in  which  he  sees  fire  leap 
from  the  mouths  of  cannon.  He  wakes 
with  a  start.  Like  B.,  he  was  wakened  by 
a  flash  of  light  projected  from  the  dark 
lantern  of  the  night  nurse."  Such  are  often 
the  dreams  provoked  by  a  bright  and  sud- 
den light. 

Very  different  are  those  which  are  sug- 
gested by  a  mild  and  continuous  light  like 
that  of  the  moon.  A.  Krauss  tells  how  one 
day  on  awakening  he  perceived  that  he  was 
extending   his   arm    toward   what   in   his 


DREAMS  21 

dream  appeared  to  him  to  be  the  image 
of  a  young  girl.  Little  by  little  this  image 
melted  into  that  of  the  full  moon  which 
darted  its  rays  upon  him.  It  is  a  curious 
thing  that  one  might  cite  other  examples 
of  dreams  where  the  rays  of  the  moon,  ca- 
ressing the  eyes  of  the  sleeper,  evoked  be- 
fore him  virginal  apparitions.  May  we 
not  suppose  that  such  might  have  been  the 
origin  in  antiquity  of  the  fable  of  En- 
dymion — Endymion  the  shepherd,  lapped 
in  perpetual  slumber,  for  whom  the  god- 
dess Selene,  that  is,  the  moon,  is  smitten 
with  love  while  he  sleeps? 

I  have  spoken  of  visual  sensations.  They 
are  the  principal  ones.  But  the  auditory 
scnsationjjrieverthelcss  play  a  role.  First, 
the  ear  has  also  its  internal  sensations, 
sensations  of  buzzing,  of  tinkling,  of  whist- 
ling, difficult  to  isolate  and  to  perceive 
while  awake,  but  which  are  clearly  distin- 
guished in  sleep.  Besides  that  we  continue, 
when  once  asleep,  to  hear  external  sounds. 
The  creaking  of  furniture,  the  crackling  of 
the  fire,  the  rain  beating  against  the  win- 
dow, the  wind  playing  its  chromatic  scale 


22  DREAMS 

in  the  chimney,  such  are  the  sounds  which 
come  to  the  ear  of  the  sleeper  and  which 
the  dream  converts,  according  to  circum- 
stances, into  conversation,  singing,  cries, 
music,  etc.  Scissors  were  struck  against 
the  tongs  in  the  ears  of  Alfred  Maury 
while  he  slept.  Immediately  he  dreamt 
that  he  heard  the  tocsin  and  took  part  in 
the  events  of  June,  1848.  Such  observa- 
tions and  experiences  are  numerous.  But 
let  us  hasten  to  say  that  sounds  do  not  play 
in  our  dreams  so  important  a  role  as  colors. 
Our  dreams  arg^aboye  jlj,  yilsualj  and  even 
more  visual  than  we  think.  To  whom  has 
it  not  happened — as  M.  Max  Simon  has 
remarked — to  talk  in  a  dream  with  a  cer- 
tain person,  to  dream  a  whole  conversa- 
tion, and  then,  all  of  a  sudden,  a  singular 
phenomenon  strikes  the  attention  of  the 
dreamer.  He  perceives  that  he  does  not 
speak,  that  he  has  not  spoken,  that  his  in- 
terlocutor has  not  uttered  a  single  word, 
that  it  was  a  simple  exchange  of  thought 
between  them,  a  very  clear  conversation, 
in  which,  nevertheless,  nothing  has  been 
heard.    The  phenomenon  is  easily  enough 


DREAMS  23 

explained.  It  is  in  general  necessary  for 
us  to  hear  sounds  in  a  dream.  From  noth- 
ing we  can  make  nothing.  And  when  we 
are  not  provided  with  sonorous  material, 
a  dream  would  find  it  hard  to  manufacture 
sonority. 

There  is  much  more  to  say  about  the 
sensations  of  touch  than  about  those  of 
hearing,  but  I  must  hasten.  We  could  talk 
for  hours  about  the  singular  phenomena 
which  result  from  the  confused  sensations 
of  touch  during  sleep.  These  sensations, 
mingling  with  the  images  which  occupy 
our  visual  field,  modify  them  or  arrange 
them  in  their  own  way.  Often  in  the  midst 
of  the  night  the  contact  of  our  body  with 
its  light  clothing  makes  itself  felt  all  at 
once  and  reminds  us  that  we  are  lightly 
clothed.  Then,  if  our  dream  is  at  the  mo- 
ment taking  us  through  the  street,  it  is  in 
this  simple  attire  that  we  present  ourselves 
to  the  gaze  of  the  passers-by,  without  their 
appearing  to  be  astonished  by  it.  We  are 
ourselves  astonished  in  the  dream,  but  that 
never  appears  to  astonish^ other  j^eo^le.  I 
cite    this    dream    because    it    is    frequent. 


24  DREAMS 

There  is  another  which  many  of  us  must 
have  experienced.  It  consists  of  feeling 
oneself  flying  through  the  air  or  floating  in 
space.  Once  having  had  this  dream,  one 
may  be  quite  sure  that  it  will  reappear; 
and  every  time  that  it  recurs  the  dreamer 
reasons  in  this  way:  "I  have  had  before 
now  in  a  dream  the  illusion  of  flying  or 
floating,  but  this  time  it  is  the  real  thing. 
It  has  certainly  proved  to  me  that  we  may 
free  ourselves  from  the  law  of  gravita- 
tion." Now,  if  you  wake  abruptly  from 
this  dream,  you  can  analyze  it  without  dif- 
ficulty, if  you  undertake  it  immediately. 
You  will  see  that  you  feel  very  clearly  that 
your  feet  are  not  touching  the  earth.  And, 
nevertheless,  not  believing  yourself  asleep, 
you  have  lost  sight  of  the  fact  that  you 
are  lying  down.  Therefore,  since  you  are 
not  lying  down  and  yet  your  feet  do  not 
feel  the  resistance  of  the  ground,  the  con- 
clusion is  natural  that  you  are  floating  in 
space.  Notice  this  also:  when  levitation 
accompanies  the  flight,  it  is  on  one  side 
only  that  you  make  an  effort  to  fly.  And 
if  you  woke  at  that  moment  you  would  find 


DREAMS  25 

that  this  side  is  the  one  on  which  you  are 
lying,  and  that  the  sensation  of  effort  for 
flight  coincides  with  the  real  sensation 
given  you  by  the  pressure  of  your  body 
against  the  bed.  This  sensation  of  pres- 
sure, dissociated  from  its  cause,  becomes  a 
pure  and  simple  sensation  of  effort  and, 
joined  to  the  illusion  of  floating  in  space,  is 
sufficient  to  produce  the  dream. 

It  is  interesting  to  see  that  these  sensa- 
tions of  pressure,  mounting,  so  to  speak, 
to  the  level  of  our  visual  field  and  taking 
advantage  of  the  luminous  dust  which  fills 
it,  eff'ect  its  transformation  into  forms  and 
colors.  M.  Max  Simon  tells  of  having 
a  strange  and  somewhat  painful  dream. 
He  dreamt  that  he  was  confronted  by 
two  piles  of  golden  coins,  side  by  side  and 
of  unequal  height,  which  for  some  reason 
or  other  he  had  to  equalize.  But  he  could 
not  accomplish  it.  This  produced  a  feel- 
ing of  extreme  anguish.  This  feeling, 
growing  moment  by  moment,  finally  awak- 
ened him.  He  then  perceived  that  one 
of  his  legs  was  caught  by  the  folds  of 
the  bedclothes  in  such  a  way  that  his  two 


26  DREAMS 

feet  were  on  different  levels  and  it  was  im- 
possible for  him  to  bring  them  together. 
From  this  the  sensation  of  inequality, 
making  an  irruption  into  the  visual  field 
and  there  encountering  (such  at  least  is  the 
hypothesis  which  I  propose)  one  or  more 
yellow  spots,  expressed  itself  visually  by 
the  inequality  of  the  two  piles  of  gold 
pieces.  There  is,  then,  immanent  in  the 
tactile  sensations  during  sleep,  a  tendency 
to  visualize  themselves  and  enter  in  this 
form  into  the  dream. 

More  important  still  than  the  tactile 
sensations,  properly  speaking,  are  the  sen- 
sations which  pertain  to  what  is  sometimes 
called  internal  touch,  deep-seated  sensa- 
tions emanating  from  all  points  of  the 
organism  and,  more  particularly,  from  the 
viscera.  One  cannot  imagine  the  degree 
of  sharpness,  of  acuity,  which  may  be  ob- 
tained during  sleep  by  these  interior  sensa- 
tions. They  doubtless  already  exist  as  well 
during  waking.  But  we  are  then  dis- 
tracted by  practical  action.  We  live  out- 
side of  ours^lyes.  But  sleep  makes  us  re- 
tire into  ourselves.    It  happens  frequently 


DREAMS  27 

that  persons  subject  to  laryngitis,  amygda- 
litis, etc.,  dream  that  they  are  attacked  by 
their  affection  and  experience  a  disagree- 
able tingling  on  the  side  of  their  throat. 
When  awakened,  they  feel  nothing  more, 
and  believe  it  an  illusion;  but  a  few  hours 
later  the  illusion  becomes  a  reality.  There 
are  cited  maladies  and  grave  accidents,  at- 
tacks of  epilepsy,  cardiac  affections,  etc., 
which  have  been  foreseen  and,,  as  it  were, 
prophesied  in  dreams.  We  need  not  be 
astonished,  then,  that  philosophers  like 
Schopenhauer  have  seen  in  the  dream  a  re- 
verberation, in  the  heart  of  consciousness, 
of  perturbations  emanating  from  the  sym- 
pathetic nervous  system;  and  that  psy- 
chologists like  Schemer  have  attributed  to 
each  of  our  organs  the  power  of  provoking 
a  well-determined  kind  of  dream  which 
represents  it,  as  it  were,  symbolically;  and 
finally  that  physicians  like  Artigues  have 
written  treatises  on  the  semeiological  value 
of  dreams,  that  is  to  say,  the  method  of 
making  use  of  dreams  for  the  diagnosis 
of  certain  maladies.  More  recently,  M. 
Tissie,  of  whom  we  have  just  spoken,  has 


] 


Vi 


28  DREAMS 

shown  how  specific  dreams  are  connected 
with  affections  of  the  digestive,  respiratory, 
and  circulatory  apparatus. 

I  will  summarize  what  I  have  just  been 
saying.  When  we  are  sleeping  naturally, 
it  is  not  necessary  to  believe,  as  has  often 
been  supposed,  that  our  senses  are  closed 
to  external  sensations.  Our  senses  continue 
to  be  active.  They  act,  it  is  true,  with  less 
precision,  but  in  compensation  they  em- 
brace a  host  of  "subjective"  impressions 
which  pass  unperceived  when  we  are 
awake — for  then  we  live  in  a  world  of 
perceptions  common  to  all  men — and 
which  reappear  in  sleep,  when  we  live 
only  for  ourselves.  Thus  our  faculty  of 
sense  perception,  far  from  being  narrowed 
during  sleep  at  all  points,  is  on  the  con- 
trary extended,  at  least  in  certain  directions, 
in  its  field  of  operations.  It  is  true  that  it 
often  loses  in  energy,  in  tension,  what  it 
gains  in  extension.  It  brings  to  us  only 
confused  impressions.  These  impressions 
are  the  materials  of  our  dreams.  But  they 
are  only  the  materials,  they  do  not  suffice 
to  produce  them. 


DREAMS  29 

They  do  not  suffice  to  produce  them,  be- 
cause they  are  vague  and  indeterminate. 
To  speak  only  of  those  that  play  the  prin- 
cipal role,  the  changing  colors  and  forms, 
which  deploy  before  us  when  our  eyes  are 
closed,  never  have  well-defined  contours. 
Here  are  black  lines  upon  a  white  back- 
ground. They  may  represent  to  the 
dreamer  the  page  of  a  book,  or  the  facade 
of  a  new  house  with  dark  blinds,  or  any 
number  of  other  things.  Who  will  choose? 
What  is  the  form  that  will  imprint  its 
decision  upon  the  indecision  of  this  ma- 
terial?   This  form  is  our  memory. 

Let  us  note  first  that  the  dream  in  gen- 
eral creates  nothing.  Doubtless  there  may 
be  cited  some  examples  of  artistic,  literary 
and  scientific  production  in  dreams.  I  will 
recall  only  the  well-known  anecdote  told 
of  Tartini,  a  violinist-composer  of  the  eigh- 
teenth century.  As  he  was  trying  to  compose 
a  sonata  and  the  muse  remained  recalcitrant, 
he  went  to  sleep  and  he  saw  in  a  dream 
the  devil,  who  seized  his  violin  and  played 
with  master  hand  the  desired  sonata.  Tar- 
tini wrote  it  out  from  memory  when  he 


30  DREAMS 

woke.  It  has  come  to  us  under  the  name 
of  "The  Devil's  Sonata."  But  it  is  very 
difficult,  in  regard  to  such  old  cases,  to 
distinguish  between  history  and  legend. 
We  should  have  auto-observations  of  cer- 
tain authenticity.  Now  I  have  not  been 
able  to  find  anything  more  than  that  of  the 
contemporary  English  novelist,  Stevenson. 
In  a  very  curious  essay  entitled  "A  Chap- 
ter on  Dreams,"  this  author,  who  is  en- 
dowed with  a  rare  talent  for  analysis, 
explains  to  us  how  the  most  original  of 
his  stories  have  been  composed  or  at  least 
sketched  in  dreams.  But  read  the  chap- 
ter carefully.  You  will  see  that  at  a  cer- 
tain time  in  his  life  Stevenson  had  come 
to  be  in  an  habitual  psychical  state  where 
it  was  very  hard  for  him  to  say  whether 
he  was  sleeping  or  waking.  That  appears 
to  me  to  be  the  truth.  When  the  mind 
creates,  I  would  say  when  it  is  capable  of 
giving  the  effort  of  organization  and  syn- 
thesis which  is  necessary  to  triumph  over 
a  certain  difficulty,  to  solve  a  problem,  to 
produce  a  living  work  of  the  imagination, 
we  are  not  really  asleep,  or  at  least  that 


DREAMS  31 

part  of  ourselves  which  labors  is  not  the 
same  as  that  which  sleeps.  We  cannot 
say,  then,  that  it  is  a  dream.  In  sleep, 
properly  speaking,  in  sleep  which  absorbs 
our  whole  personality,  it^is  memories  and 
ojil^r_memories  which  weave  the  web  of 
our  dreams.  "But  oTterP  we  do  not  rec- 
ognize  them.  They  may  be  very  old 
memories,  forgotten  during  waking  hours, 
drawn  from  the  most  obscure  depths  of  our 
past;  they  may  be,  often  are,  memories  of 
objects  that  we  have  perceived  distract- 
edly, almost  unconsciously,  while  awake. 
Or  they  may  be  fragments  of  broken  mem- 
ories which  have  been  picked  up  here  and 
there  and  mingled  by  chance,  composing 
an  incoherent  and  unrecognizable  whole. 
Before  these  bizarre  assemblages  of  images 
which  present  no  plausible  significance, 
our  intelligence  (which  is  far  from  sur- 
rendering the  reasoning  faculty  during 
sleep,  as  has  been  asserted)  seeks  an  ex- 
planation, tries  to  fill  the  lacunae.  It  fills 
them  by  calling  up  other  memories  which, 
presenting  themselves  often  with  the  same 
deformations  and  the  same  incoherences  as 


32  DREAMS 

the  preceding,  demand  in  their  turn  a  new 
explanation,  and  so  on  indefinitely.  But 
I  do  not  insist  upon  this  point  for  the  mo- 
ment. It  is  sufficient  for  me  to  say,  in 
order  to  answer  the  question  which  I  have 
propounded,  that  the  formative  power  of 
the  materials  furnished  to  the  dream  by 
the  different  senses,  the  power  which  con- 
verts into  precise,  determined  objects  the 
vague  and  indistinct  sensations  that  the 
dreamer  receives  from  his  eyes,  his  ears, 
and  the  whole  surface  and  interior  of  his 
body,  is  the  memory. 

Memory!  In  a  waking  state  we  have 
indeed  memories  which  appear  and  disap- 
pear, occupying  our  mind  in  turn.  But 
they  are  always  memories  which  are  close- 
ly connected  with  our  present  situation, 
our  present  occupation,  our  present  action. 
I  recall  at  this  moment  the  book  of  M. 
d'Hervey  on  dreams;  that  is  because  I  am 
discussing  the  subject  of  dreams  and  this 
act  orients  in  a  certain  particular  direc- 
tion the  activity  of  my  memory.  The 
memories  that  we  evoke  while  waking, 
however  distant  they  may  at  first  appear  to 


DREAMS  33 

be  from  the  present  action,  are  always  con- 
nected with  it  in  some  way.  What  is  the 
role  of  memory  in  an  animal?  It  is  to 
recall   to   him,    in   any   circumstance,    the 


advantageous  or  injurious  consequences 
which  have  formerly  arisen  in  analogous 
circumstanceSj^  [n  order  to  instruct  him 
as  to  what  he  ought  tp_do.  In  man  mem- 
ory is  doubtless  less  the  slave  of  action, 
but  still  it  sticks  to  it.  Our  memories,  at 
any  given  moment,  form  a  solid  whole,  a 
pyramid,  so  to  speak,  whose  point  is  in- 
serted precisely  into  our  present  action. 
But  behind  the  memories  which  are  con- 
cerned in  our  occupations  and  are  revealed 
by  means  of  it,  there  are  others,  thousands 
of  others,  stored  below  the  scene  illumi- 
/^nated  by  consciousness.  Yes,  I  believe  in- 
J  deed  that  all  our  past  life  is  there,  pre- 
\  served  even  to  the  most  infinitesimal  de- 
tails, and  that  we  forget  nothing,  and  that 
all  that  we  have  felt,  perceived,  thought, 

V willed,  from  the  first  awakening  of  our 
consciousness,  survives  indestructibly.  But 
the  memories  which  are  preserved  in  these 
obscure  depths  are  there  in  the  state  of 


34  DREAMS 

invisible  phantoms.  They  aspire,  perhaps, 
to  the  light,  but  they  do  not  even  try  to 
rise  to  it;  they  know  that  it  is  impossible 
and  that  I,  as  a  living  and  acting  being, 
have  something  else  to  do  than  to  occupy 
myself  with  them.  But  suppose  that,  at 
a  given  moment,  I  become  disinterested 
in  the  present  situation,  in  the  present  ac- 
tion— in  short,  in  all  which  previously  has 
fixed  and  guided  my  memory;  suppose,  in 
other  words,  that  I  am  asleep.  Then  these 
memories,  perceiving  that  I  have  taken 
away  the  obstacle,  have  raised  the  trapdoor 
which  has  kept  them  beneath  the  floor  of 
consciousness,  arise  from  the  depths;  they 
rise,  they  move,  they  perform  in  the  night 
of  unconsciousness  a  great  dance  macabre. 
They  rush  together  to  the  door  which  has 
been  left  ajar.  They  all  want  to  get 
through.  But  they  cannot;  there  are  too 
many  of  them.  From  the  multitudes  which 
arc  called,  which  will  be  chosen?  It  is  not 
hard  to  say.  Formerly,  when  I  was  awake, 
the  memories  which  forced  their  way  were 
those  which  could  involve  claims  of  rela- 
tionship with   the  present  situation,  with 


DREAMS  35 

what  I  saw  and  heard  around  me.  Now 
it  is  more  vague  images  which  occupy  my 
sight,  more  indecisive  sounds  which  affect 
my  ear,  more  indistinct  touches  which  are 
distributed  over  the  surface  of  my  body, 
but  there  are  also  the  more  numerous  sen- 
sations which  arise  from  the  deepest  parts 
of  the  organism.  So,  then,  among  the 
phantom  memories  which  aspire  to  fill 
themselves  with  color,  with  sonority,  in 
short  with  materiality,  the  only  ones  that 
succeed  are  those  which  can  assimilate 
themselves  with  the  color-dust  that  we  per- 
ceive, the  external  and  internal  sensations 
that  we  catch,  etc.,  and  which,  besides,  re- 
spond to  the  affective  tone  of  our  general 
sensibility.*  When  this  union  is  effected 
between  the  memory  and  the  sensation,  we 
have  a  dream. 

In  a  poetic  page  of  the  Enneades,  the 

•Author's  note  (1913).  This  would  be  the  place  where  es- 
pecially will  intervene  those  "repressed  desires"  which  Freud 
and  certain  other  psychologists,  especially  in  America,  have 
studied  with  such  penetration  and  ingenuity.  (See  in  particular 
the  recent  volumes  of  the  Journal  of  Abnormal  Psychology,  pub- 
lished in  Boston  by  Dr.  Morton  Prince. )  When  the  above  ad- 
dress was  delivered  (1901)  the  work  of  Freud  on  dreams  (/)/> 
Traumdeutung)  liad  been  already  published,  but  "psycho-analy- 
sis" was  far  from  having  the  development  that  it  has  to-day. 
(H.  B.) 


36  DREAMS 

philosopher  Plotinus,  interpreter  and  con- 
tinuator  of  Plato,  explains  to  us  how  men 
come  to  life.  Nature,  he  says,  sketches 
the  living  bodies,  but  sketches  them  only. 
Left  to  her  own  forces  she  can  never  com- 
plete the  task.  On  the  other  hand,  souls 
inhabit  the  world  of  Ideas.  Incapable 
in  themselves  of  acting,  not  even  think- 
ing of  action,  they  float  beyond  space 
and  beyond  time.  But,  among  all  the 
bodies,  there  are  some  which  specially  re- 
spond by  their  form  to  the  aspirations  of 
some  particular  souls;  and  among  these 
souls  there  are  those  which  recognize 
themselves  in  some  particular  body.  The 
body,  which  does  not  come  altogether  via- 
ble from  the  hand  of  nature,  rises  toward 
the  soul  which  might  give  it  complete 
life;  and  the  soul,  looking  upon  the  body 
and  believing  that  it  perceives  its  own 
image  as  in  a  mirror,  and  attracted,  fas- 
cinated by  the  image,  lets  itself  fall.  It 
falls,  and  this  fall  is  life.  I  may  com- 
pare to  these  detached  souls  the  mem- 
ories plunged  in  the  obscurity  of  the 
unconscious.    On  the  other  hand,  our  noc- 


DREAMS  37 

turnal  sensations  resemble  these  incomplete 
bodies.  The  sensation  is  warm,  colored, 
vibrant  and  almost  living,  but  vague.  The 
memory  is  complete,  but  airy  and  lifeless. 
The  sensation  wishes  to  find  a  form  on 
which  to  mold  the  vagueness  of  its  con- 
tours. The  memory  would  obtain  matter 
to  fill  it,  to  ballast  it,  in  short  to  realize  it. 
They  are  drawn  toward  each  other;  and 
the  phantom  memory,  incarnated  in  the 
sensation  which  brings  to  it  flesh  and  blood, 
becomes  a  being  with  a  life  of  its  own,  a 
dream. 

The  birth  of  a  dream  is  then  no  mystery. 
It  resembles  the  birth  of  all  our  percep- 
tions. The  mechanism  of  the  dream  is  the 
same,  in  general,  as  that  of  normal  per- 
ception. When  we  perceive  a  real  ob- 
ject, what  we  actually  see — the  sensible 
matter  of  our  perception — is  very  little  in 
comparison  with  what  our  memory  adds 
to  it.  When  you  read  a  book,  when  you 
look  through  your  newspaper,  do  you  sup- 
pose that  all  the  printed  letters  really  come 
into  your  consciousness?  In  that  case  the 
whole  day  would  hardly  be  long  enough 


38  DREAMS 

for  you  to  read  a  paper.  The  truth  is  that 
you  see  in  each  word  and  even  in  each 
member  of  a  phrase  only  some  letters 
or  even  some  characteristic  marks,  just 
enough  to  permit  you  to  divine  the  rest. 
All  of  the  rest,  that  you  think  you  see, 
you  really  give  yourself  as  an  hallucina- 
tion. There  are  numerous  and  decisive 
experiments  which  leave  no  doubt  on  this 
point.  I  v^^ill  cite  only  those  of  Gold- 
scheider  and  Miiller.  These  experiment- 
ers w^rote  or  printed  some  formulas  in 
common  use,  "Positively  no  admission;" 
"Preface  to  the  fourth  edition,"  etc.  But 
they  took  care  to  w^rite  the  v^ords  incor- 
rectly, changing  and,  above  all,  omitting 
letters.  These  sentences  were  exposed  in 
a  darkened  room.  The  person  who  served 
as  the  subject  of  the  experiment  was  placed 
before  them  and  did  not  know,  of  course, 
what  had  been  written.  Then  the  inscrip- 
tion was  illuminated  by  the  electric  light 
for  a  very  short  time,  too  short  for  the  ob- 
server to  be  able  to  perceive  really  all  the 
letters.  They  began  by  determining  ex- 
perimentally the  time  necessary  for  seeing 


DREAMS  39 

one  letter  of  the  alphabet.  It  was  then 
easy  to  arrange  it  so  that  the  observer 
could  not  perceive  more  than  eight  or  ten 
letters,  for  example,  of  the  thirty  or  forty 
letters  composing  the  formula.  Usually, 
however,  he  read  the  entire  phrase  with- 
out difficulty.  But  that  is  not  for  us  the 
most  instructive  point  of  this  experiment. 
If  the  observer  is  asked  what  are  the 
letters  that  he  is  sure  of  having  seen,  these 
may  be,  of  course,  the  letters  really  writ- 
ten, but  there  may  be  also  absent  letters, 
either  letters  that  we  replaced  by  others 
or  that  have  simply  been  omitted.  /  Thus 
an  observer  will  see  quite  distinctly  in  full 
light  a  letter  which  does  not  exist,  if  this 
letter,  on  account  of  the  general  sense, 
ought  to  enter  into  the  phrase./ The  char- 
acters which  have  really  affected  the  eye 
have  been  utilized  only  to  serve  as  an  in- 
dication to  the  unconscious  memory  of  the 
observer.  This  memory,  discovering  the 
appropriate  remembrance,  i.e.,  finding  the 
formula  to  which  these  characters  give  a 
start  toward  realization,  projects  the  re- 
membrance externally  in  an  hallucinatory 


^Kt-.^ 


OJ^^o-NA/^jOsjsJi  't>J^V;ivjc>^  ^^NAx>.*Jo-'^-**   .     ^  ^ 

40  DREAMS   ^ 

form.  It  is  this  remembrance,  and  not  the 
words  themselves,  that  the  observer  has 
seen.  It  is  thus  demonstrated  that  rapid 
reading  is  in  great  part  a  work  of  divina- 
tion, but  not  of  abstract  divination.  (It  is 
an  exteraaljzation  of  memories  which  take 
advantage,  to  a  certain  extent,  of  the  par- 
tial realization  that  they  find  here  and  there 
in  order  to  completely  realize  themselves.  ) 
Thus,  in  the  waking  state  and  in  the 
knowledge  that  we  get  of  the  real  objects 
which  surround  us,  an  operation  is  con- 
tinually going  on  which  is  of  quite  the 
same  nature  as  that  of  the  dream.  We 
perceive  merely  a  sketch  of  the  object. 
This  sketch  appeals  to  the  complete  mem- 
4^ory,  and  this  complete  memory,  which  by 
itself  was  either  unconscious  or  simply  in 
the  thought  state,  profits  by  the  occasion 
to  come  out.  It  is  this  kind  of  hallucina- 
tion, inserted  and  fitted  into  a  real  frame, 
that  we  perceive.  It  is  a  shorter  process: 
it  is  very  much  quicker  done  than  to  see 
the  thing  itself.  Besides,  there  are  many 
interesting  observations  to  be  made  upon 
the  conduct  and  attitude  of  the  memory 


DREAMS  41 

images  during  this  operation.  It  is  not 
necessary  to  suppose  that  they  are  in  our 
memory  in  a  state  of  inert  impressions. 
They  are  like  the  steam  iji^a  boiler,  under 
more  or  less  tension. 

At  the  moment  when  the  perceived 
sketch  calls  them  forth,  it  is  as  if  they 
were  then  grouped  in  families  according 
to  their  relationship  and  resemblances. 
There  are  experiments  of  Miinsterberg, 
earlier  than  those  of  Goldscheider  and 
Miiller,  which  appear  to  me  to  confirm 
this  hypothesis,  although  they  were  made 
for  a  very  different  purpose.  "^Munster- 
berg  wrote  the  words  correctly;  they  were, 
besides,  not  common  phrases;  they  were 
isolated  words  taken  by  chance.  Here 
again  the  word  was  exposed  during  the 
time  too  short  for  it  to  be  entirely  per- 
ceived. Now,  while  the  observer  was 
looking  at  the  written  word,  some  one 
spoke  in  his  ear  another  word  of  a  very 
different  significance.  This  is  what  hap- 
pened: the  observer  declared  that  he  had 
seen  a  word  which  was  not  the  written 
word,  but  which  resembled  it  in  its  gen- 


42  DREAMS 

eral  form,  and  which  besides  recalled,  by 
its  meaning,  the  word  which  was  spoken 
in  his  ear.  For  example,  the  word  written 
was  "tumult"  and  the  word  spoken  was 
"railroad."  The  observer  read  "tunnel." 
The  written  word  was  "Trieste"  and  the 
spoken  word  was  the  German  "Verzwei- 
flung"  (despair).  The  observer  read 
"Trost,"  which  signifies  "consolation."  It 
is  as  if  the  word  "railroad,"  pronounced 
in  the  ear,  wakened,  without  our  knowing 
it,  hopes  of  conscious  realization  in  a 
crowd  of  memories  which  have  some  rela- 
tionship with  the  idea  of  "railroad"  (car, 
rail,  trip,  etc.).  But  this  is  only  a  hope, 
and  the  memory  which  succeeds  in  coming 
into  consciousness  is  that  which  the  actually 
present  sensation  had  already  begun  to 
realize.  / 

Such  is  the  mechanism  of  true  percep- 
tion, and  such  is  that  of  the  dream.  In 
both  cases  there  are,  on  one  hand,  real 
impressions  made  upon  the  organs  of  sense, 
and  upon  the  other  memories  which  en- 
case themselves  in  the  impression  and 
profit  by  its  vitality  to  return  again  to  life. 


DREAMS  43 

But,  then,  what  is  the  essential  differ- 
ence between  perceiving  and  dreaming? 
What  is  sleep?  I  do  not  ask,  of  course, 
how  sleep  can  be  explained  physiolog- 
ically. That  is  a  special  question,  and  be- 
sides is  far  from  being  settled.  I  ask  what 
is  sleep  psychologically;  for  our  mind 
continues  to  exercise  itself  when  we  are 
asleep,  and  it  exercises  itself  as  we  have 
just  seen  on  elements  analogous  to  those 
of  waking,  on  sensations  and  memories; 
and  also  in  an  analogous  manner  combines 
them.  Nevertheless  we  have  on  the  one 
hand  normal  perception,  and  on  the  other 
the  dream.  What  is  the  difference,  I  re- 
peat? What  are  the  psychological  charac- 
teristics of  the  sleeping  state? 

We  must  distrust  theories.  There  are 
a  great  many  of  them  on  this  point.  Some 
say  that  sleep  consists  in  isolating  oneself 
from  the  external  world,  in  closing  the 
senses  to  outside  things.  But  we  have 
shown  that  our  senses  continue  to  act  dur- 
ing sleep,  that  they  provide  us  with  tjie 
outline,  or  at  least  the  point  ojf  departure, 
of  most  of  our  dreams.     Some  say:  "To 


^    44  DREAMS 

go  to  sleep  is  to  stop  the  action  of  the  su- 
perior faculties  of  the  mind,"  and  they  talk 
of  a  kind  of  momentary  paralysis  of  the 
higher  centers.  I  do  not  think  that  this  is 
much  more  exact.  In  a  dream  we  become 
no  doubt  indifferent  to  logic,  but  not  in- 
capable of  logic.  There  are  dreams  when 
we  reason  with  correctness  and  even  with 
subtlety.  I  might  almost  say,  at  the  risk 
I  of  seeming  paradoxical,  that  the  mistake  ol 
the  dreamer  is  often  in  reasoning  too  much. 
He  would  avoid  the  absurdity  if  he  would 
remain  a  simple  spectator  of  the  proces- 
sion of  images  which  compose  his  dream. 
But  when  he  strongly  desires  to  explain 
it,  his  explanation,  intended  to  bind  to 
gether  incoherent  images,  can  be  nothing 
more  than  a  bizarre  reasoning  which 
verges  upon  absurdity.  I  recognize,  in 
deed,  that  our  superior  intellectual  facul 
ties  are  relaxed  in  sleep,  that  generally  the 
logic  of  a  dreamer  is  feeble  enough  and 
often  resembles  a  mere  parody  of  logic. 
But  one  might  say  as  much  of  all  of  our 
faculties  during  sleep.  It  is  then  not  by 
the  abolition  of  reasoning,  any  more  than 


DREAMS  45 

by  the  closing  of  the  senses,  that  we  char- 
acterize dreaming. 

Something  else  is  essential.  We  need 
something  more  than  theories.  We  need 
an  intimate  contact  with  the  facts.  One 
must  make  the  decisive  experiment  upon 
oneself.  It  is  necessary  that  on  coming  out 
of  a  dream,  since  we  cannot  analyze  our- 
selves in  the  dream  itself,  we  should  watch 
the  transition  from  sleeping  to  waking,  fol- 
low upon  the  transition  as  closely  as  pos- 
sible, and  try  to  express  by  words  what  we 
experience  in  this  passage.  This  is  very 
difficult,  but  may  be  accomplished  by 
forcing  the  attention.  Permit,  then,  the 
writer  to  take  an  example  from  his  own 
personal  experience,  and  to  tell  of  a  recent 
dream  as  well  as  what  was  accomplished 
on  coming  out  of  the  dream. 

Now  the  dreamer  dreamed  that  he  was 
speaking  before  an  assembly,  that  he  was 
making  a  political  speech  before  a  political 
assembly.  Then  in  the  midst  of  the  audi- 
torium a  murmur  rose.  The  murmur  aug- 
mented; it  became  a  muttering.  Then  it 
became   a   roar,    a   frightful    tumult,    and 


46  DREAMS 

finally  there  resounded  from  all  parts 
timed  to  a  uniform  rhythm  the  cries,  "Out! 
Out!"  At  that  moment  he  wakened.  A 
dog  was  baying  in  a  neighboring  garden, 
and  with  each  one  of  his  *Wow-wows" 
one  of  the  cries  of  "Out!  Out!"  seemed  to 
be  identical.  Well,  here  was  the  infinitesi- 
mal moment  which  it  is  necessary  to  seize. 
The  waking  ego,  just  reappearing, 
should  turn  to  the  dreaming  ego,  which 
is  still  there,  and,  during  some  instants  at 
least,  hold  it  without  letting  it  go.  "I 
have  caught  you  at  it!  You  thought  it  was  a 
crowd  shouting  and  it  was  a  dog  barking. 
Now,  I  shall  not  let  go  of  you  until  you 
tell  me  just  what  you  were  doing!"  To 
which  the  dreaming  ego  would  answer,  "I 
was  doing  nothing;  and  this  is  just  where 
you  and  I  differ  from  one  another.  You 
imagine  that  in  order  to  hear  a  dog  bark- 
ing, and  to  know  that  it  is  a  dog  that  barks, 
you  have  nothing  to  do.  That  is  a  great 
mistake.  You  accomplish,  without  suspect- 
ing it,  a  considerable  effort.  You  take 
your  entire  memory,  all  your  accumulated 
experience,  and  you  bring  this  formidable 


DREAMS  47 

mass  of  memories  to  converge  upon  a  sin- 
gle point,  in  such  a  way  as  to  insert  ex- 
actly in  the  sounds  you  heard  that  one  of 
your  memories  which  is  the  most  capable 
of  being  adapted  to  it.  Nay,  you  must  ob- 
tain a  perfect  adherence,  for  between  the 
memory  that  you  evoke  and  the  crude  sen- 
sation that  you  perceive  there  must  not  be 
the  least  discrepancy;  otherwise  you  would 
be  just  dreaming.  This  adjustment  you  can 
only  obtain  by  an  effort  of  the  memory 
and  an  effort  of  the  perception,  just  as  the 
tailor  who  is  trying  on  a  new  coat  pulls 
together  the  pieces  of  cloth  that  he  adjusts 
to  the  shape  of  your  body  in  order  to  pin 
them.  You  exert,  then,  continually,  every 
moment  of  the  day,  an  enormous  effort. 
Your  life  in  a  waking  state  is  a  life  of  la- 
bor, even  when  you  think  you  are  doing 
nothing,  for  at  every  minute  you  have  to 
choose  and  every  minute  exclude.  You 
choose  among  your  sensations,  since  you 
reject  from  your  consciousness  a  thousand 
subjective  sensations  which  come  back  in 
the  night  when  you  sleep.  You  choose,  and 
with  extreme  precision  and  delicacy,  among 


48  DREAMS 

your  memories,  since  you  reject  all  that  do 
not  exactly  suit  your  present  state.  This 
choice  which  you  continually  accomplish, 
this  adaptation,  ceaselessly  renewed,  is  the 
first  and  most  essential  condition  of  what  is 
called  common  sense.  But  all  this  keeps 
you  in  a  state  of  uninterrupted  tension. 
You  do  not  feel  it  at  the  moment,  any  more 
than  you  feel  the  pressure  of  the  atmos- 
phere, but  it  fatigues  you  in  the  long  run. 
Common  sense  is  very  fatiguing. 

"So,  I  repeat,  I  differ  from  you  pre- 
cisely in  that  I  do  nothing.  The  effort 
that  you  give  without  cessation  I  simply 
abstain  from  giving.  In  place  of  attach- 
ing myself  to  life,  I  detach  myself  from  it. 
Everything  has  become  indifferent  to  me. 
I  have  become  disinterested  in  everything. 
To  sleep  is  to  become  disinterested.  One 
sleeps  to  the  exact  extent  to  which  he  be- 
comes disinterested.  A  mother  who  sleeps 
by  the  side  of  her  child  will  not  stir  at  the 
sound  of  thunder,  but  the  sigh  of  the  child 
will  wake  her.  Does  she  really  sleep  in 
regard  to  her  child?  We  do  not  sleep  in 
regard  to  what  continues  to  interest  us. 


DREAMS  49 

"You  ask  me  what  it  is  that  I  do  when  I 
dream?  I  will  tell  you  what  you  do  when 
you  are  awake.  You  take  me,  the  me  of 
dreams,  me  the  totality  of  your  past,  and 
you  force  me,  by  making  me  smaller  and 
smaller,  to  fit  into  the  little  circle  that  you 
trace  around  your  present  action.  That  is 
what  it  is  to  be  awake.  That  is  what  it  is  to 
live  the  normal  psychical  life.  It  is  to  bat- 
tle. It  is  to  will.  As  for  the  dream,  have 
you  really  any  need  that  I  should  explain 
it?  It  is  the  state  into  which  you  naturally 
fall  when  you  let  yourself  ^o,  when  you  no 
longer  have  the  power  to  concentrate  your- 
self upon  a  single  point,  when  you  have 
ceased  to  will.  What  needs  much  more  to 
be  explained  is  the  marvelous  mechanism 
by  which  at  any  moment  your  will  obtains 
instantly,  and  almost  unconsciously,  the  con- 
centration of  all  that  you  have  within  you 
upon  one  and  the  same  point,  the  point  that 
interests  you.  But  to  explain  this  is  the 
task  of  normal  psychology,  of  the  psychol- 
ogy of  waking,  for  willing  and  waking  are 
one  and  the  same  thing." 

This  is  what  the  dreaming  ego  would  say. 


50  DREAMS 

And  it  would  tell  us  a  great  many  other 
things  still  if  we  could  let  it  talk  freely.  But 
let  us  sum  up  briefly  the  essential  difference 
which  separates  a  dream  from  the  waking 
state.  In  the  dream  the  same  faculties  are 
exercised  as  during  waking,  but  they  are 
in  a  state  of  tension  in  the  one  case,  and  of 
relaxation  in  the  other.  The  dream  con- 
sists of  the  entire  mental  life  minus  the  ten- 
sion, the  effort  and  the  bodily  movement. 
We  perceive  still,  we  remember  still,  we 
reason  still.  All  this  can  abound  in  the 
dream;  for  abundance,  in  the  domain  of  the 
mind,  does  not  mean  effort.  What  requires 
an  effort  is  the  precision  of  adjustment.  To 
connect  the  sound  of  a  barking  dog  with 
the  memory  of  a  crowd  that  murmurs  and 
shouts  requires  no  effort.  But  in  order  that 
this  sound  should  be  perceived  as  the  bark- 
ing of  a  dog,  a  positive  effort  must  be  made. 
It  is  this  force  that  the  dreamer  lacks.  It 
is  by  that,  and  by  that  alone,  that  he  is  dis- 
tinguished from  the  waking  man. 

From  this  essential  difference  can  be 
drawn  a  great  many  others.  We  can  come 
to  understand  the  chief  characteristics  of 


DREAMS  51 

the  dream.  But  I  can  only  outline  the 
scheme  of  this  study.  It  depends  especially 
upon  three  points,  which  are:  the  incoher- 
ence of  dreams,  the  abolition  of  the  sense 
of  duration  that  often  appears  to  be  mani- 
fested in  dreams,  and,  finally,  the  order  in 
which  the  memories  present  themselves  to 
the  dreamer,  contending  for  the  sensations 
present  where  they  are  to  be  embodied. 

The  incoherence  of  the  dream  seems  to 
me  easy  enough  to  explain.  As  it  is  charac- 
teristic of  the  dream  not  to  demand  a  com- 
plete adjustment  between  the  memory  image 
and  the  sensation,  but,  on  the  contrary,  to 
allow  some  play  between  them,  very  differ- 
ent memories  can  suit  the  same  sensation. 
For  example,  there  may  be  in  the  field  of 
vision  a  green  spot  with  white  points.  This 
might  be  a  lawn  spangled  with  white 
flowers.  It  might  be  a  billiard-table  with 
its  balls.  It  might  be  a  host  of  other  things 
besides.  These  different  memory  images, 
all  capable  of  utilizing  the  same  sensation, 
chase  after  it.  Sometimes  they  attain  it,  one 
after  the  other.  And  so  the  lawn  becomes 
a  billiard-table,  and  we  watch  these  extraor- 


52  DREAMS 

dinary  transformations.  Often  it  is  at  the 
same  time,  and  altogether  that  these  mem- 
ory images  join  the  sensation,  and  then  the 
lawn  will  be  a  billiard-table.  From  this 
come  those  absurd  dreams  where  an  object 
remains  as  it  is  and  at  the  same  time  be- 
comes something  else.  As  I  have  just  said, 
the  mind,  confronted  by  these  absurd  vi- 
sions, seeks  an  explanation  and  often  there- 
by aggravates  the  incoherence. 

As  for  the  abolition  of  the  sense  of  time 
in  many  of  our  dreams,  that  is  another  ef- 
fect of  the  same  cause.  In  a  few  seconds  a 
dream  can  present  to  us  a  series  of  events 
which  will  occupy,  in  the  waking  state,  en- 
tire days.  You  know  the  example  cited  by 
M.  Maury:  it  has  become  classic,  and 
although  it  has  been  contested  of  late,  I 
regard  it  as  probable,  because  of  the  great 
number  of  analogous  observations  that  I 
found  scattered  through  the  literature 
of  dreams.  But  this  precipitation  of  the 
images  is  not  at  all  mysterious.  When  we 
are  awake  we  live  a  life  in  common  with 
our  fellows.  Our  attention  to  this  external 
and  social  life  is  the  great  regulator  of  the 


DREAMS  53 

succession  of  our  internal  states.  It  is  like 
the  balance  wheel  of  a  watch,  which  mod- 
erates and  cuts  into  regular  sections  the  un- 
divided, almost  instantaneous  tension  of  the 
spring.  It  is  this  balance  wheel  which  is 
lacking  in  the  dream.  Acceleration  is  no 
more  than  abundance  a  sign  of  force  in  the 
domain  of  the  mind.  It  is,  I  repeat,  the 
precision  of  adjustment  that  requires  effort, 
and  this  is  exactly  what  the  dreamer  lacks. 
He  is  no  longer  capable  of  that  attention  to 
life  which  is  necessary  in  order  that  the  in- 
ner may  be  regulated  by  the  outer,  and  that 
the  internal  duration  fit  exactly  into  the 
general  duration  of  things. 

It  remains  now  to  explain  how  the  pe- 
culiar relaxation  of  the  mind  in  the  dream 
accounts  for  the  preference  given  by  the 
dreamer  to  one  memory  image  rather  than 
others,  equally  capable  of  being  inserted 
into  the  actual  sensations.  There  is  a  cur- 
rent prejudice  to  the  effect  that  we  dream 
mostly  about  the  events  which  have  espe- 
cially preoccupied  us  during  the  day.  This 
is  sometimes  true.  But  when  the  psycholog- 
ical  life   of   the  waking  state   thus   pro- 


54  DREAMS 

longs  itself  into  sleep,  it  is  because_we 
hardly^leep.  A  sleep  filled  with  dreams 
of  this  kind  would  be  a  sleep  from  which 
we  come  out  quite  fatigued.  In  normal 
sleep  our  dreams  concern  themselves  rather, 
other  things  being  equal,  with  the  thoughts 
which  we  have  passed  through  rapidly  or 
upon  objects  which  we  have  perceived 
almost  without  paying  attention  to  them. 
If  we  dream  about  events  of  the  same  day, 
it  is  the  most  insignificant  facts,  and  not  the 
most  important,  which  have  the  best  chance 
of  reappearing. 

I  agree  entirely  on  this  point  with  the 
observation  of  W.  Robert,  of  Delage  and  of 
Freud.  I  was  in  the  street,  I  was  waiting 
for  a  street-car,  I  stood  beside  the  track  and 
did  not  run  the  least  risk.  But  if,  at  the 
moment  when  the  street-car  passed,  the  idea 
of  possible  danger  had  crossed  my  mind  or 
even  if  my  body  had  instinctively  recoiled 
without  my  having  been  conscious  of  feel- 
ing any  fear,  I  might  dream  that  night  that 
the  car  had  run  over  my  body.  I  watch 
at  the  bedside  of  an  invalid  whose  condi- 
tion is  hopeless.     If  at  any  moment,  per- 


DREAMS  55 

haps  without  even  being  aware  of  it,  I  had 
hoped  against  hope,  I  might  dream  that  the 
invalid  was  cured.  I  should  dream  of  the 
cure,  in  any  case,  more  probably  than  that 
I  should  dream  of  the  disease.  In  short, 
the  events  which  reappear  by  preference 
in  the  dream  are  those  of  which  we  have 
thought  most  distractedly.  What  is  there 
astonishing  about  that?  The  ego  of  the 
dream  is  an  ego  that  is  relaxed;  the  mem- 
ories which  it  gathers  most  readily  are  the 
memories  of  relaxation  and^_distxaclio_n, 
those_wliidi  do  not  bear  the  mark  of  effort. 
It  is  true  that  in  very  profound  slumber 
the  law  that  regulates  the  reappearance  of 
memories  may  be  very  different.  We  know 
almost  nothing  of  this  profound  slumber. 
The  dreams  which  fill  it  are,  as  a  general 
rule,  the  dreams  which  we  forget.  Some- 
times, nevertheless,  we  recover  something 
of  them.  And  then  it  is  a  very  peculiar 
feeling,  strange,  indescribable,  that  we  ex- 
perience. It  seems  to  us  that  we  have  re- 
turned from  afar  in  space  and  afar  in  time. 
These  are  doubtless  very  old  scenes,  scenes 
of  youth  or  infancy  that  we  live  over  then 


56  DREAMS 

in  all  their  details,  with  a  mood  which  col- 
ors them  with  that  fresh  sensation  of  in- 
fancy and  youth  that  we  seek  vainly  to  re- 
vive when  awake. 

It  is  upon  this  profound  slumber  that 
psychology  ought  to  direct  its  efforts,  not 
only  to  study  the  mechanism  of  unconscious 
memory,  but  to  examine  the  more  mysteri- 
ous phenomena  which  are  raised  by  "psy- 
chical research."  I  do  not  dare  express  an 
opinion  upon  phenomena  of  this  class,  but 
I  cannot  avoid  attaching  some  importance  to 
the  observations  gathered  by  so  rigorous  a 
method  and  with  such  indefatigable  zeal 
by  the  Society  for  Psychical  Research.  If 
telepathy  influences  our  dreams,  it  is  quite 
likely  that  in  this  profound  slumber  it 
would  have  the  greatest  chance  to  manifest 
itself.  But  I  repeat,  I  cannot  express  an 
opinion  upon  this  point.  I  have  gone  for- 
ward with  you  as  far  as  I  can;  I  stop  upon 
the  threshold  of  the  mystery.  To  explore 
the  most  secret  depths  of  the  unconscious, 
to  labor  in  what  I  have  just  called  the  sub- 
soil of  consciousness,  that  will  be  the  prin- 
cipal  task  of   psychology  in  the  century 


DREAMS  57 

which  is  opening.  I  do  not  doubt  that  won- 
derful discoveries  await  it  there,  as  impor- 
tant perhaps  as  have  been  in  the  preceding 
centuries  the  discoveries  of  the  physical 
and  natural  sciences.  That  at  least  is  the 
promise  which  I  make  for  it,  that  is  the 
wish  that  in  closing  I  have  for  it 


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